Tag Archives: resistance

We do not always judge a book by its epigraphs here at DP, but the below coupling most certainly captured our attention:

The book is titled Assembly, another (following Empire, almost twenty years ago, among others) fascinating collaboration between Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, who turn their attentions to the possibilities and ambiguities of resistance movements as they attempt, in their “hive” multitudes, to both confront power and escape from it.

The entire book is available for perusal online; excerpts below, with images (added by DP) from the studio of Karen Kaapcke, whose extraordinary series of paintings from the days of Occupy capture the allure of the commons: vaster, partial, incomplete and ever expanding.

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The book also carries an unusual and laudable dedication, which we amplify here through the DP megaphone, such as it is:

As plutocracy gradually transitions into the full-blown tyrannical kleptocracy which Trump both signifies and embodies, we have been reflecting on an essay by Hannah Arendt written in 1964, shortly after her witnessing of the Eichmann trial. Images are from a 2014 installation by Wilfried Gerstel.

Today we relay excerpts from an exceptionally good Democracy Now interview with Yale historian Timothy Snyder regarding both his important recent book On Tyranny and his related social media posts following the election of Donald Trump.

On resisting complacency:

On the long failure of profit-driven globalization, and its consequences:

Our coarse and degraded social reality, of which Donald Trump is nothing but a malignant symptom, gains vital sustenance from rage, aggression, rudeness, abusive language, fear and paranoia. Thus simple acts of kindness, civil engagement and calm conversations become essential acts of deep resistance, refusing to let the prevailing ethos take hold of our own souls.

For all his literary gifts, Berger was most at home in conversation, his thoughts closely tied to his limitless capacity for dialogue, and to his vigilant ears. The below conversation with Susan Sontag highly recommended.

Now comes Ernst Jünger, with a brief except from his extraordinary (and for the most part forgotten) 1951 essay Der Waldgang. The images are taken from our own forest wanderings, in search of a language for resistance to the twitching automatisms of our nihilistic epoch.